


The Delphi Ladies Reading Circle

by Jay Tryfanstone (tryfanstone)



Category: My Side of the Mountain - Jean Craighead George
Genre: Catskill Mountains, Chocolate Box Exchange 2019, Chocolate Box Treat, Gen, Libraries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 00:02:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17756057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tryfanstone/pseuds/Jay%20Tryfanstone
Summary: Not living by bread alone: Miss Turner, making friends on the mountain.





	The Delphi Ladies Reading Circle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lirin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/gifts).



Somehow in all the fuss about Mom and Dad and everyone else moving onto the mountain, I forgot about the library books. Usually this would not be a problem, because Miss Turner had already promised me that the Board of Trustees would not mind if I was a few days late returning them. Books are meant to be useful, she said, very firmly. In return, I was careful, and made sure to wrap the library’s books safely in a deerskin pouch so they would not get wet or dirty, although I cannot say that sometimes they did not smell a little of woodsmoke when I took them back. Miss Turner said this was a good smell, though, and nobody seemed to mind. And I learned a lot! It is always true that the best way of learning something is to do it, for you can read as many books about lighting a fire as you like, but it is only when you come to light one yourself that you realise how difficult this can be. It is better if you can find someone who will show you how to do these things, like Bill showed me how to grow a spark into a fire with pine-needles and matchstick kindling, but if you do not have a Bill a book is a very good substitute so long as it is written by someone who has has really done the things they are telling you about. You must be sure, though, that they are telling the truth. I think, for example, that if Mr. Henry D. Thoreau had lived as simply as he said he did, he would have used less words.

Life on the mountain was a great deal more complicated when there were so many people. There was much to be done that spring, and there was lots of running backwards and forwards with lumber, and glass windows, and a stove, and all sorts of things which are not absolutely necessary but sure do make a cabin start to look like a home. But after all that time living alone, sometimes it was hard for Faithful and me to be around other folks so much, and we would take off for the far side of the mountain or go over to the lake for a day or two. I always brought back some rabbits, or some bulbs for the new garden Dad had John and Jim digging, so no one minded too much. After the cabin walls went up, it very quickly felt as if there had always been Gribleys living on the mountain, but Mom and Dad were always finding things to improve, like the water wheel, which was awfully useful for grinding corn and washing town clothes, and the oven, which meant we had wheat bread as well as flat bread. And one day, I came back to the cabin, and there was a neat set of shelves in the corner, and on them Mom had put the china cups and the teapot she had from Great Aunt Alice when she got married, and the glass vase Dad had brought back from Connecticut the year he went crabbing, and on the bottom shelves were the row of books all of us had read when we were kids, one after the other, and Mom’s teaching books, and the bible, and my library books, which were so overdue I could not remember when I had last been to town. I must have looked shocked, because Dad asked me what was wrong, so I had to tell him, and he said we could take them back the very next day. Dad was always a stickler for rules, it went with being a sailor, although he was very good at finding ways round them, too, so it all worked out in the end, and I was sure Miss Turner would understand about the books, too.

But it turned out that I didn’t have to race down into town, which I wasn’t looking forward too on account of already having to say good morning to more than enough people on the mountain, never mind in town, because Miss Turner came right up the mountain the very next day. You have to imagine this was a shock, because I had only seen her in her patent-leather shoes and one of those slippery shirts with a bow women wear at work, but it turned out Miss Turner came from a hill farming family, and that was how she knew to send me away with all the right books, and not the ones written by people who had never actually done the things they were telling you to do. When she came up the mountain she came up in a sensible pair of trousers and a well-worn pair of boots, and she brought with her a baking pan for Mom and a packet of candy for the little ones, alongside of a box of screws for Dad and a new book on Mushrooms of the Appalachian Mountains for me, although I do not think I will ever trust a mushroom which is not a puffball. Mom was all flustered at first, but Miss Turner helped bring the washing in, and then said she thought Aunt Alice’s tea-cups were very pretty, and it turned out that Mom and Miss Turner had both trained to be teachers before Mom was Mom and Miss Turner moved to Delhi to look after the library. 

So that was alright then, and Miss Turner stayed the night and took the library books back in the morning, and when we had waved her down the mountainside Dad gave me an extra big hug and said, that was a good friend you made there, son, even though I do not think Miss Turner knew how to whittle a flute or make jam. But Mom had made pancakes for breakfast, and there were a lot of smiles that morning when she and Miss Turner made plans to meet up for some kind of ladies’ sewing circle clubhouse, only with books, and when Mom was happy Dad was happy. “Remember this, Sam,” he said, “You can’t just live on bread alone.” I thought this was obvious, but anyway. “Thanks, Dad,” I said, and went to get Faithful, so that we could scare up some rabbits for supper before the sun got too high.


End file.
